any old hippies? Even just baby-boomers?

I have been increasingly aware of this sadness for a few years now, so I will ask the tribe.

Do you find that people just kind of pretend that nothing happened culturally between Kennedy's assassination and like, Reagan?

Me and the wife are called "hippies" by some friends and other people (I never encouraged this label). We like Janis Joplin and get high everyday and drop acid and dig protest songs and tie-dye and the Doors and colors and non-theistic omni-culturally spirituality and civil rights.

Now, growing up, I was led to believe that this was basically normal, and expected that people in my parents' generation would recognize and appreciate this continuity of their own counter-culture.

Instead though, I typically encounter total ignorance or outright hostility. It is literally like people are pretending none of that ever happened. Does this happen to you? Do you think that it is weird?

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

I think we're all so burned out that it all turned to shit. Specifically, I'm burned out that it all turned to shit. Politicians are worse than they've ever been. Corporations and banks are basically thieves in ties. People seem weaker and (or maybe just burned out) just shrug rather than bitching and taking to the streets. People worship sports players and movie stars while teachers dig into their own pockets to supply kids with at least meager art supplies. If I let myself, I can pretty much view most of the country as one big festering pile of shit.

As little as 20 years ago, I voted in every election from fed'l to local and did so as soon as I was old enough to register. I don't register now. I just can't vote for someone just because he might be slightly less of a crook than the other guy.

So, I guess I don't think it's weird. Better to turn a blind eye to what might have been than to take out a city block in anger. Or live a quiet life of despair.

Now please don't ever ask me to think that deeply again in public.

"Right is right, even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it." - St. Augustine

I think we're all so burned out that it all turned to shit. Specifically, I'm burned out that it all turned to shit. Politicians are worse than they've ever been. Corporations and banks are basically thieves in ties. People seem weaker and (or maybe just burned out) just shrug rather than bitching and taking to the streets. People worship sports players and movie stars while teachers dig into their own pockets to supply kids with at least meager art supplies. If I let myself, I can pretty much view most of the country as one big festering pile of shit.

All of my Liberty activist friends need to hear this song and meditate upon the chorus:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

You don't think it's weird though that these oldheads treat me suspiciously? I understand like, randomly on the street, because feeble-minded agents probably try and fake this or that sympathy all the time to start conversations, but I am talking about people that I know personally! They just kinda get uncomfortable and act like I am being distasteful. Fuck em

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

isn't that what was happening in the late 60s? People growing their own food, retreating from the authoritarian coercion immersion, and forming up into their own tribes? And how are you going to say that mass movements didn't change anything? You (local idiomatic colloquialism meaning fellows
never heard of bus boycotts?

I also object to this anti-high sentiment. Of course it changes things. I used to do stupid crap, haunt consumer hubs with groups of equally pointless friends, get into fights and shit- now I get high and pet my cats. My world is different and better, there's no denying that. Consequently, everyone that I know has a different life than if through their relationship with me, they were urged along the same coercion immersion path.

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

Getting high and listening to music dosen't change the world. Jesus, this is why all the fucking Boomers should be melted down into biodiesel.

I was going to say something shitty and then I saw the emoticon. LOL. I'm glad I held my tongue before posting.

Originally Posted by sbhikes

Not really a hippie. I was born in 1965. Neither a baby boomer nor the child of a baby boomer.

The protests changed some things way back then but protests don't really work anymore.

Getting high and taking acid doesn't really do anything to change the world nowadays. Can't see the point of it.

I guess I'm a doomer more than anything. You know, peak oil and all that. We're going to kill the planet. Not much better you can do than to learn how to do useful things.

The one way that getting high changes the world is that every dollar spent on illegal drugs is a dollar the gub'ment was too stupid to tax.

Also, when we do hallucinogenics like acid or other mind altering type drugs or speed-type drugs, we learn to see things in a different way. Pot, not so much. About the only thing pot results in is money being re-routed out of the system and in some states that's not the case any more.

I'm actually surprised that pot wasn't legalized 30 years ago. After all, if you want to feed the masses food that isn't food and export most of the jobs that require brains, wouldn't you want a populace of pot smoking, alcohol drinking, xanax chugging numbnuts sitting in front of their TVs watching The Voice?*

I was going to say something shitty and then I saw the emoticon. LOL. I'm glad I held my tongue before posting.

The one way that getting high changes the world is that every dollar spent on illegal drugs is a dollar the gub'ment was too stupid to tax.

Also, when we do hallucinogenics like acid or other mind altering type drugs or speed-type drugs, we learn to see things in a different way. Pot, not so much. About the only thing pot results in is money being re-routed out of the system and in some states that's not the case any more.

I'm actually surprised that pot wasn't legalized 30 years ago. After all, if you want to feed the masses food that isn't food and export most of the jobs that require brains, wouldn't you want a populace of pot smoking, alcohol drinking, xanax chugging numbnuts sitting in front of their TVs watching The Voice?*